Advice Needed On Fabricating New Tailgate Torsion Bar For 1965 Ford Country Sedan

D'oh! Man, it's like the guy struggling to remove tire from wheel the old-fashioned way, and got whacked in the bunghole with a tire iron!

 

I would think that somebody properly skilled in the art should be able to fairly easily copy the complete torsion bar. I would go that route rather than just waiting for the new one to break. Who knows when you might find another one.

 

Here's a repair kit of sorts. It's expensive. But, there might be other local sources available:

https://www.parts4taillifts.com/products/details/1640.html

 

Very interesting! There are a couple spring manufacturers in town I'm going to contact first to see if they are up for the job of replicating the one I just picked up.

 

All they would need would be a 7/16 " torsion rod bent to shape. Being spring steel, the bends will have to be first heated up before bending and hardened back up thereafter. That's even something you could do yourself, if only you had the rod

 

Green Sales Co. says the Ford part number for the torsion bar is C5AZ7144890A, which is different than what the book says. I have contacted some local spring manufacturers by email and am waiting to hear back. The ones I called haven't answered their phone yet.

 

Part numbers are often superceded by newer ones. It's often a PITA tracing a part's lineage.

 

It's not looking good so far. I emailed a few local places and sent a picture of the torsion bar. Only IDC Spring responded, and they told me that it's not something they could do at this time. I called a few places and they wouldn't answer the phone. Then after a few attempts, they said that they couldn't do it.

I started calling the places that I had emailed after a few days of no response. I tried calling Valley Spring Service several times, and they told me they'd have no way of fabricating one.

I called Phoenix Spring and they said they don't do automotive stuff; only aerospace. I told them that it's just a piece of 7/16" spring steel rod with some bends in it. So, they told me that they'd had me talk to an engineer. I was on hold for a long time, then someone came on and asked me if I'd been helped. Then I got hung up on. So, I called back and told them that I had sent them an email with a picture of it, so they said they'd look at it and call me back, but that didn't happen today.

 

I'm afraid, the scene was even more dramatic than how you've described it



Any updates? It might be best to just install that rusty one, for now. That'll buy you time for dealing with replacing the broken one

 

That was a nut shot! The guy with the tire irons got a butt(hole) shot! Oh, and lest we forget, Boyd Coddington paying a 'tire guy' to dismount military tires for his son, by hand. Guy got whacked in the forehead for his stupidity.

 

That's nepotism for ya'

 

Phoenix Spring emailed me after I resent the email and addressed it to a couple of their engineers. They said that they do not do that type of work. I guess it's far beyond the technical abilities of places that manufacture springs for aerospace and automotive applications.

I think the torsion bar might be too rusty to use. It's heavily cratered and only half its original thickness in the area where the original broke. If this one breaks or twists out of shape then we no longer have a pattern to have a new one made. I can't believe how challenging it is to work on an old Ford. You can't get anything for them and it seems that I'm the first person to ever work on a mid-60s Ford wagon. Meanwhile, I can somehow get everything I need for my old Mercedes.

 

This might sound strange, but see if you have any blacksmiths in your area. Most spring manufacturers aren't going to want to make one part for one person. It is a hassle for a regular production shop and it would be too expensive for them to sell it to you for what they had in to it. Plus, most probably just make wound springs and don't deal with torsion springs like this very much.

 

They'll do it for at least maybe 500 of them. Otherwise, it isn't worth their time. Car clubs often pitch in for getting specific items done in numbers.
I've seen these springs used in other cars. They were usually only about 1/4 inch thick, because trunk lids are lighter to lift. You could probably bind two thin ones together, in order to substitute the one you've got

 

Lots of other cars use these, but the shape isn't even going to be close. I might as well just buy spring steel rod and bend it myself, except I'd probably need a vice, and not sure if a mapp gas torch would do it. I really only expected this to maybe be a weekend project to help out my roommate. You can't even get any of the weatherstripping for these cars. Ugh. Can't seem to get anything for his 1960 Ford F-100, either.